Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Governing a large country
is like frying small fish.
Too much poking spoils the meat.

When the Tao is used to govern the world
then evil will lose its power to harm the people.
Not that evil will no longer exist,
but only because it has lost its power.
Just as evil can lose its ability to harm,
the Master shuns the use of violence.

If you give evil nothing to oppose,
then virtue will return by itself.

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Along with the “muddied water” metaphor, the “frying small fish” metaphor is one of the most important and well-known metaphors from the tao te ching. This metaphor briefly summarizes the main points of the book. What it means is that you should make least efforts possible and have the patience to let things take care of themselves. Therefore, the non-action that is so often emphasized in the tao te ching does not suggest that you should take absolutely no action at all. You actually do your job but only from behind, and the actions that you take – in my own interpretation – are calculated based on the long term goal in your mind.

One professor of psychiatry notes that this metaphor provides a useful simile for describing our mind system. Our unconscious mind can be likened to the “large country” in this metaphor. The human mind is an infinitely complex entity. No wonder that the complexity of the human brain is compared to the vastness of our universe. If you try to “rule” your “large country,” or your mind, it simply fails because the governing law according to which a nation-state operates does not obey the will of a mere individual even if he is a sage himself. There are times to push yourself almost over the limit, but you have to recognize this mode cannot last for very long. Do you remember the marines from StarCraft using stimpack that shine in explosiveness but soon wither away more quickly?

Your mind system works according to its own particular ways, but you cannot dictate how it should operate. Sometimes, rather than trying to toughen yourself up in times of crisis, simply mellow out and think in the long term. Relax. In fact, even the strongest mind can break out of the blue in an endless war of attrition.

Chester Bennington sings:

“When you feel you’re alone, caught off from this cruel world, your instinct’s telling you to run. Listen to your heart, those angel voices. They’ll sing to you they’ll be your guide back home. When life leaves us blind, loves keeps us kind.”

Rather than burning yourself out with a narcissistically insistent notion of invincibility, when times are not right, you need to stay back and think longer. Conserve your psychological energy – if there is something like it in the real. You apply gradual changes to your mind and your situation rather than trying to change them all of a sudden.